- "We should always fight for the weak against the strong!" - "Well, why don't we send troops to Afghanistan to fight the Russians?" - "The Russians are too strong."
Not underrated, practically everyone I have meet, that has seen this show, sees it as one of the best shows ever made. It is just not as known in fx the US, and is an old show... Highly loved, but perhaps not seen enough among the masses.
Unlike a lot of other situation comedy shows I find the jokes and the reality are no5. Far from the truth. Not just in the U.K., but I rather suspect in many countries.
@Carl Gustav Tessin - I don't think you quite understood what you were saying, there. Choke that life blood? It's _their_ supply. We'd be choking ourselves.
Saudi Arabia sits on the world's largest supply. Other Middle Eastern countries have oil as well, but even Iraqi oil must be _purchased_ by the West before it belongs to the West. You might actually say with more accuracy that the OPEC nations has a considerable ownership of the West.
This episode has one of the most hilarious lines near the end: *HACKER:* [The American Air Force] is ready with a whole Airborne battalion if we want reinforcements. *HUMPHREY:* Reinforcements of what?! *HACKER:* Reinforcements of good will, Humphrey!
I think that the"Race to the bottom" is too far gone now. Younger ppl don't watch mainstream media and ppl who do want something *else* on in the background whilst they Twitter away. Watching something & Thinking seen to be alien concepts now.
Because the people who watch TV are currently watching Love Island and I'm a celebrity. You could probably have a successful relaunch of Are You Being Served, but no one would watch Yes Prime Minister 2..... apart from those of us who still listen to Radio 4 :)
He's in a way right. Surely the civil servants usually have a lot more knowledge and experience in their particular field than a new politician every 5 years.
@The Program Sir humphrey is not only effective in persuasion. He's a trained lawyer via a first from Oxford. That's something which in itself would give him an good job with a high salary if he went into the industry. As the de facto leader of the DAA his job exactly is do deal with paperwork, laws and management which are things he is extremely good at. So yes he is an expert.
@@felixlps1 Sir Humprey is not a lawyer. As he points out in "the skeleton in the cupboard" when explaining how he made an error in a contract 30 years before: "Obviously i am not a trained lawyer or wouldn't have been in charge of the legal unit". Humpy read the classics at the fictional Baillie College, Oxford
Yes. And the deeper aspect of his stance is that it is not particularly "British." MOST countries behave like this; the exception being countries in the grip of a fanatical ideology.
@@fvriovs5502 Germany hasn't taken a million Syrians. Jordan has 1.5 million, Turkey 2 million, Lebanon 1.5 million. Many of the Syrians in Saudi Arabia are refugees, and they work. Unlike you, many refugees work.
We should always side with truth, justice, human rights, etc. just not let that dictate our foreign policy. Classic, for once someone is telling it like it is.
Your comment is just so ironic I can't resist replying. When Hacker got that line it was to demonstrate his simplistic naive world view. I am smiling at the thought that someone replied with 'tell it like it is' :)
Yes: there never was a prime minister like this. No-one with such views would ever have become a minister in the first place, let alone PM. The same applies to all other countries.
The sad truth is India and Pakistan still cannot look beyond where colonialists have placed them and are fighting w with each other and wasting their energies. These countries need to grow up and agree to disagree on some things and look at and get along with what is best for their people. This goes for China and India as well.
@randomguy9777 yes. Colonial India was mostly inhabited by a Hindu majority and a Muslim minority. To minimize expected religious persecution after independence the British partitioned into the majority hindu India and the majority Muslim east and west Pakistan. East Pakistan later separated and became Bangladesh. there was a huge amount of persecution and violence against those who happened to live on the wrong side of the new and badly drawn border. While far improved, persecution still continues today and diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan are sour, much to their own detriments.
Obviously, the British should have let the Muslims and Hindus butcher each other more than they did after partition. In truth, the Raj was just one long detente.
@@FortuitusVideo The British, if they cared even a bit, should not have cut and run, as they did, having ruled and looted for hundreds of years, but handed over in a planned manner, even using the military if they had to prevent loss of life. As they had good intelligence and they knew there was disharmony among the different fractions that is what any caring ruler would do. Their selfishness despite the professed benevolence resulted in many colonies ending in racial wars that are even present today. Their lumping of different ethnicities with thousands of years of culture together, for self serving economic reasons resulted in wars that are even present today if you look at Africa, Middle East etc. These current inhabitants of these lands need to learn from the past, let go and work towards harmony but completion in trade, so they grow and prosper, while keeping their differences and agreeing to disagree. That is a much better expenditure of their energy in our short human lives.
All sounds very clever but it's just not true. The British Government strongly opposed the partition of Palestine and effectively stormed off in a huff when the UN forced partition. Cyprus wasn't partitioned by the British; it was invaded by the Turks. The partition of Ireland was never planned but forced by threat of an armed unionist uprising. And the partition of India was forced on the British by Muslim Indians who were adamant they wanted Pakistan. In fact, the opposite is true. The British were forever mashing people together in federations because they thought small states were unviable. See the Federation of the West Indies, Malaysia, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, India. All federal states made by the British. Popular historical narratives can be such nonsense.
Unless that's what they wanted us to think. YM/YPM always highlights that politics is about making people believe your intention is the opposite of what it really is.
@@Gg-zd8xz jinnah demanded that because British poised the seed of mistrust between hindus and muslims by divisive policies. Jinnah was in Congress only at the start of it's founding.
@@shankysays It may surprise many fellow Indians to learn that while the British did indeed sow a few seeds of division on their own end, the Indians shot themselves in the foot with one incident that was arguably the most potent seed of division: the Khilafat movement. It had no bearing on Indian nationalism, and was nonetheless endorsed by the Congress. The pan-Islamist feelings that the Khilafat agitation engendered never abated. Our "prescient" Congressmen did not understand that Islamism is not commensurate with nationalism.
Rolf Hartmann but they did give an independence constitution that gave both communities a veto over another guaranteeing deadlock and strife, as well as allowing both Greece and turkey to interfere
@@pwp8737 So they should have given it one or the other, or niether. The Cyprus problem was always going to happen once a larger power left, the country has managed just about 2 years of independance in its entire history since the Ottomans took control in the 16th century, that independance situation was when the British gave it to them and they then decided they were going to force through being part of Greece, the Turkish Cypriots were never going to accept that, flip the coin and ask what would the Greek cypriots do if the Turkish Cypriots decided the whole island should be part of Turkey. Britain kept the peace there until it wasnt in charge any more, within 18 months the UN was involved, about another 10 years and the invasion happened. Sometimes things are not entirely Britains fault and decisions were made under pressure from local groups.
"I'm talking about what's right and wrong." While "Don't let the Foreign Office hear you" is a good rejoinder, I prefer the version from "The Whiskey Priest": "You may be, Minister, but I'm not - it would be a serious misuse of government time."
@@festethephule7553 San Marino, the serene republic. Rare Earth did a video on it and Switzerland (the perpetually neutral state) are the two that come to mind...
Maybe you should have accepted the original offer that gave you guys over 2/3rds of the land instead of trying to start a genocide against a group that just survived a previous genocide and had the sympathy of the world behind them because of it.
@@mattbenz99 False. They will keep expanding. We gave them 4 fifth of Palestine just to leave us with West Bank and Gaza. But they didn't stop, they keep building illigal settlements. They even expand in Syrian Golan hights. BTW, no one talked about genocide. The only massacres and ethnic cleansing seen were the ones committed against Palestinians.
@@wiszak9370 No you didnt. They expanded into the West Bank because they won the 6 day war and assumed the previous treaty was null because or it. Also, you are just factually wrong. The Arabs massacred entire villages in the Israeli war of independence. Even today, Hamas actively calls for genocide. You claiming that Israeli is anywhere comparable to that is you either lying, or just being stupid. Edit: Also they offered Syria back Golan on multiple occasions. Syria just refused to take it. To accept the land back would require recognizing Israel exists. Syria chose to lose the land but deny Israel's existence.
Well, India hadn't seen a civil war from its point of view, but from the UK's point of view. UK gave the British Raj independence, which ended up dividing in Pakistan and India. These two declared war on each other for Kashmir within the same year of their independence. Civil war by dividing the colony.
Tina Yael Severinovna M. If you don't think that India has had a civil war how do you explain 2,000,000 dead in the months leading up to Independence Day, traffic accidents?
Eternal Greed . Britain did not divide the colony the Hindus and Muslims divided the colony by refusing to live with each other. Kashmir was never a problem until the rules of independence were broken. The rule for princely states was that their rulers would declare for India or Pakistan on the basis of the majority of their citizens. The Muslim nizam of Hyderabad declared his Hindu state for Pakistan. India invaded. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir declared his Muslim state for India . India invaded. You can't have it all ways. The rules were clear. The Brits did not cause the problems. The local politicians did. Facts are important.
You serious? The India - Pakistan conflict was one of the closest cases the world got to a nuclear war. It was very much a "civil war" when talking about the original British raj.
Trump has said Kim Jung Un is an upright fellow, said climate change is a hoax, and threatened NOAA because they didn't go along with how he said a hurricane would travel.
@@MichaelSHartman *"Trump has said Kim Jung Un is an upright fellow,""* It's ironic that, in my experience, a lot of people criticise Trump for this yet defend the likes of Jeremy Corbyn for having even closer links with the IRA/Hezbollah etc. Not saying that you do, but just an observation. Trump has made much greater progress in calming that front than his predecessor. Not much to show for it so far, but nevertheless.....
- "We should always fight for the weak against the strong!"
- "Well, why don't we send troops to Afghanistan to fight the Russians?"
- "The Russians are too strong."
True ATM with Russia in Ukraine
@@kevinchun5242 Your comment needs a bit of a revision. 😆
You fight the battles you can win - if they are optional. That's why we aren't trying to protect chinese muslims from the PLA/CCP
@@occamraiser although, perhaps we ought to be - at least idealistically
@@Prawnsly International relations aren't about idealism. They're about power.
It was one of greatest tv shows ever , sooo underrated ...
Not underrated, practically everyone I have meet, that has seen this show, sees it as one of the best shows ever made.
It is just not as known in fx the US, and is an old show... Highly loved, but perhaps not seen enough among the masses.
Indeed, this show has been universally loved. That still constitutes as being underrated.
'sooo underrated ...' - Were you watching at the time? It was never underrated and it was always well respected and well received.
Unlike a lot of other situation comedy shows I find the jokes and the reality are no5. Far from the truth. Not just in the U.K., but I rather suspect in many countries.
This tv show was decades ahead of its time .
Still relevant in 2020
It was actually relevant exactly at its time, it's just politics doesn't change.
It's not decades ahead of its time, it is more like the times never change.
Even drinking spirits on the job?
2100s
I have marveled at it for 40 years. It never gets old.
'The power of Islam!'....Oil supplies...so true
choke that life blood and we can kill of Islam, as a political force.
that is work in progess.
@Carl Gustav Tessin - I don't think you quite understood what you were saying, there. Choke that life blood? It's _their_ supply. We'd be choking ourselves.
Oil in Arabia is owned by West.
Saudi Arabia sits on the world's largest supply. Other Middle Eastern countries have oil as well, but even Iraqi oil must be _purchased_ by the West before it belongs to the West. You might actually say with more accuracy that the OPEC nations has a considerable ownership of the West.
So many Truths in a satirical show.
That's basically what satire is, truth masked in humour.
That's a fact and this show came out in the 80's and nothing has changed.
IMHO, some of the best scriptwriting and acting of any British comedy.
This episode has one of the most hilarious lines near the end:
*HACKER:* [The American Air Force] is ready with a whole Airborne battalion if we want reinforcements.
*HUMPHREY:* Reinforcements of what?!
*HACKER:* Reinforcements of good will, Humphrey!
I especially enjoy this exchange:
"Prime Minister, I gather that there's an airborne batallion in the air"
"Sounds like the right place for it"
@@olefredrikskjegstad5972 That's great too. Also:
"Luke! Can you hear me?! Watch my lips! I want to talk to the _Isrrrrraeli_ ambassador!"
This show is the epitome of “it’s funny ‘cause it’s true”
why can’t we have excellent quality TV shows like this again?
I think that the"Race to the bottom" is too far gone now. Younger ppl don't watch mainstream media and ppl who do want something *else* on in the background whilst they Twitter away. Watching something & Thinking seen to be alien concepts now.
Because the people who watch TV are currently watching Love Island and I'm a celebrity. You could probably have a successful relaunch of Are You Being Served, but no one would watch Yes Prime Minister 2..... apart from those of us who still listen to Radio 4 :)
You know, the more I watch this the more on Sir Humphrey's side i become
He's in a way right. Surely the civil servants usually have a lot more knowledge and experience in their particular field than a new politician every 5 years.
@The Program Sir humphrey is not only effective in persuasion. He's a trained lawyer via a first from Oxford. That's something which in itself would give him an good job with a high salary if he went into the industry. As the de facto leader of the DAA his job exactly is do deal with paperwork, laws and management which are things he is extremely good at. So yes he is an expert.
@@felixlps1 Sir Humprey is not a lawyer. As he points out in "the skeleton in the cupboard" when explaining how he made an error in a contract 30 years before: "Obviously i am not a trained lawyer or wouldn't have been in charge of the legal unit". Humpy read the classics at the fictional Baillie College, Oxford
Yes. And the deeper aspect of his stance is that it is not particularly "British." MOST countries behave like this; the exception being countries in the grip of a fanatical ideology.
@The Program You explained that very well.
This is such an insightful show….simply brilliant. Easy way to understand politics
Power of Islam = Oil Supplies
Bash the poor refugees from Syria while maintaining close alliance with the Saudis ... and get the likes of Tommy Robinson to push it.
@@garsm2290 Why don't the Saudis take in the Syrians then?
@@fvriovs5502 There are over 200,000 Syrians in Saudi Arabia, you plonker.
@@garsm2290 Those aren't refugees. They're foreign workers.
Saudi Arabia isn't taking fleeing Syrians.
Germany has taken a million migrants.
@@fvriovs5502 Germany hasn't taken a million Syrians. Jordan has 1.5 million, Turkey 2 million, Lebanon 1.5 million. Many of the Syrians in Saudi Arabia are refugees, and they work. Unlike you, many refugees work.
We should always side with truth, justice, human rights, etc. just not let that dictate our foreign policy.
Classic, for once someone is telling it like it is.
Your comment is just so ironic I can't resist replying. When Hacker got that line it was to demonstrate his simplistic naive world view. I am smiling at the thought that someone replied with 'tell it like it is' :)
so many truths spoken in jest
Jest perhaps, but underlining truth using wit would be more appropriate.
I love the Israeli ambassador in this. Knowing more than the PM about his own military and Commonwealth issue’s before the PM does.
one of the best documentary series the BBC has ever produced
Best TV show the UK ever created. This is a documentary 👌👌👌👌👌
Hacker, P.M. is improbably idealistic. Its like he is speaking for Jonathan Lynn most of the time.
Yes: there never was a prime minister like this. No-one with such views would ever have become a minister in the first place, let alone PM. The same applies to all other countries.
R.I.P. almost everyone who was ever in this show :(
As an Irish man that part about the Civil War really hit home lol.
Same with me, as an Indian.
Excellent version. The clarity is 👍🏿👍🏿
Funny and highly realistic. And still valid in 2023.
The writing is beyond words
Pun pun 🤣
The sad truth is India and Pakistan still cannot look beyond where colonialists have placed them and are fighting w with each other and wasting their energies. These countries need to grow up and agree to disagree on some things and look at and get along with what is best for their people. This goes for China and India as well.
China is absolutely a completely different story than India and Pakistan.
@@nathanmahloch3318 👏👏👏 bravo 🐎🐎🐎🇭🇲🇺🇸
@randomguy9777 yes. Colonial India was mostly inhabited by a Hindu majority and a Muslim minority. To minimize expected religious persecution after independence the British partitioned into the majority hindu India and the majority Muslim east and west Pakistan. East Pakistan later separated and became Bangladesh.
there was a huge amount of persecution and violence against those who happened to live on the wrong side of the new and badly drawn border. While far improved, persecution still continues today and diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan are sour, much to their own detriments.
Obviously, the British should have let the Muslims and Hindus butcher each other more than they did after partition.
In truth, the Raj was just one long detente.
@@FortuitusVideo
The British, if they cared even a bit, should not have cut and run, as they did, having ruled and looted for hundreds of years, but handed over in a planned manner, even using the military if they had to prevent loss of life.
As they had good intelligence and they knew there was disharmony among the different fractions that is what any caring ruler would do. Their selfishness despite the professed benevolence resulted in many colonies ending in racial wars that are even present today. Their lumping of different ethnicities with thousands of years of culture together, for self serving economic reasons resulted in wars that are even present today if you look at Africa, Middle East etc. These current inhabitants of these lands need to learn from the past, let go and work towards harmony but completion in trade, so they grow and prosper, while keeping their differences and agreeing to disagree.
That is a much better expenditure of their energy in our short human lives.
Still relevant in 2022
I'm relieved now this time that is !
decades later and nothing's changed, either at the UN or White Hall.
This was/is a great show.
All sounds very clever but it's just not true. The British Government strongly opposed the partition of Palestine and effectively stormed off in a huff when the UN forced partition. Cyprus wasn't partitioned by the British; it was invaded by the Turks. The partition of Ireland was never planned but forced by threat of an armed unionist uprising. And the partition of India was forced on the British by Muslim Indians who were adamant they wanted Pakistan.
In fact, the opposite is true. The British were forever mashing people together in federations because they thought small states were unviable. See the Federation of the West Indies, Malaysia, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, India. All federal states made by the British. Popular historical narratives can be such nonsense.
Unless that's what they wanted us to think. YM/YPM always highlights that politics is about making people believe your intention is the opposite of what it really is.
Humphrey is, for the right reasons, sort of has the right on Palestine
Talia is a great villain.
British colonization in nutshell.
Only Cyprus was partitioned by the UN after turkey invaded, India was partitioned because Jinnah demanded a Muslim state...
@@Gg-zd8xz jinnah demanded that because British poised the seed of mistrust between hindus and muslims by divisive policies. Jinnah was in Congress only at the start of it's founding.
Shashank Gupta Hindus and muslims have been fighting eachother as early as the 14th century, way before the British arrived on the scene
@@shankysays It may surprise many fellow Indians to learn that while the British did indeed sow a few seeds of division on their own end, the Indians shot themselves in the foot with one incident that was arguably the most potent seed of division: the Khilafat movement. It had no bearing on Indian nationalism, and was nonetheless endorsed by the Congress. The pan-Islamist feelings that the Khilafat agitation engendered never abated. Our "prescient" Congressmen did not understand that Islamism is not commensurate with nationalism.
I don't think the British actually partitioned Cyrpus, and the division happened when Turkey occupied the northern section.
Rolf Hartmann but they did give an independence constitution that gave both communities a veto over another guaranteeing deadlock and strife, as well as allowing both Greece and turkey to interfere
It was a comedy show first, factual second.
@@pwp8737 So they should have given it one or the other, or niether. The Cyprus problem was always going to happen once a larger power left, the country has managed just about 2 years of independance in its entire history since the Ottomans took control in the 16th century, that independance situation was when the British gave it to them and they then decided they were going to force through being part of Greece, the Turkish Cypriots were never going to accept that, flip the coin and ask what would the Greek cypriots do if the Turkish Cypriots decided the whole island should be part of Turkey. Britain kept the peace there until it wasnt in charge any more, within 18 months the UN was involved, about another 10 years and the invasion happened. Sometimes things are not entirely Britains fault and decisions were made under pressure from local groups.
"I'm talking about what's right and wrong."
While "Don't let the Foreign Office hear you" is a good rejoinder, I prefer the version from "The Whiskey Priest":
"You may be, Minister, but I'm not - it would be a serious misuse of government time."
Basically uk policy everywhere
Noninterference is the best policy!
has it ever been tried?
@@jdsol1938
On rare occasion I believe, though I will admit that I cannot think of any specific examples.
@@festethephule7553 sometime somewhere it must have been tried but, I can't think of any examples
@@festethephule7553 San Marino, the serene republic. Rare Earth did a video on it and Switzerland (the perpetually neutral state) are the two that come to mind...
@@festethephule7553 Rwanda
barbed humour, with a not a little truth !
YESMINISTER SELANGOR
Gotta fight the British out of the colony.
That’s how you end up doing good!
This show is probably relevant to Gim Gloms on the Planet Glib 4
GOAT
Yes....?
The British do say the most frightfully clever things when they speak English - wot?
:D
Art imitating life!😳😂😂😂😂
it was a documentary after all
Christ that sod from the foreign office is a scary cold hearted bugger . He is the most distasteful and fearful person in this show .
And after one century of British promise to give Palestine to the Jews of the world, we, the Palestinians are still suffering in our country.
that is how it works
Tip: don't go to war or try to kill them.
Long, slow chats between people might work better.
Maybe you should have accepted the original offer that gave you guys over 2/3rds of the land instead of trying to start a genocide against a group that just survived a previous genocide and had the sympathy of the world behind them because of it.
@@mattbenz99 False. They will keep expanding. We gave them 4 fifth of Palestine just to leave us with West Bank and Gaza. But they didn't stop, they keep building illigal settlements. They even expand in Syrian Golan hights. BTW, no one talked about genocide. The only massacres and ethnic cleansing seen were the ones committed against Palestinians.
@@wiszak9370
No you didnt. They expanded into the West Bank because they won the 6 day war and assumed the previous treaty was null because or it.
Also, you are just factually wrong. The Arabs massacred entire villages in the Israeli war of independence. Even today, Hamas actively calls for genocide. You claiming that Israeli is anywhere comparable to that is you either lying, or just being stupid.
Edit: Also they offered Syria back Golan on multiple occasions. Syria just refused to take it. To accept the land back would require recognizing Israel exists. Syria chose to lose the land but deny Israel's existence.
India has never had a civil war. Love this show. Don’t attack.
Well, India hadn't seen a civil war from its point of view, but from the UK's point of view.
UK gave the British Raj independence, which ended up dividing in Pakistan and India. These two declared war on each other for Kashmir within the same year of their independence.
Civil war by dividing the colony.
Tina Yael Severinovna M. If you don't think that India has had a civil war how do you explain 2,000,000 dead in the months leading up to Independence Day, traffic accidents?
Eternal Greed . Britain did not divide the colony the Hindus and Muslims divided the colony by refusing to live with each other. Kashmir was never a problem until the rules of independence were broken. The rule for princely states was that their rulers would declare for India or Pakistan on the basis of the majority of their citizens. The Muslim nizam of Hyderabad declared his Hindu state for Pakistan. India invaded. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir declared his Muslim state for India . India invaded. You can't have it all ways. The rules were clear. The Brits did not cause the problems. The local politicians did. Facts are important.
He meant British India idiot.
I will attack you because you're just an India fanboy with a superiority complex
You serious? The India - Pakistan conflict was one of the closest cases the world got to a nuclear war. It was very much a "civil war" when talking about the original British raj.
Trump loves the Saudis.
Trump has said Kim Jung Un is an upright fellow, said climate change is a hoax, and threatened NOAA because they didn't go along with how he said a hurricane would travel.
Gar Sm . Of course he does. Their money bailed out his collapsing business empire. Why do you think he loves the Russians.
He loves their oil and his arms sales, thats about it.
@@MichaelSHartman *"Trump has said Kim Jung Un is an upright fellow,""* It's ironic that, in my experience, a lot of people criticise Trump for this yet defend the likes of Jeremy Corbyn for having even closer links with the IRA/Hezbollah etc. Not saying that you do, but just an observation. Trump has made much greater progress in calming that front than his predecessor. Not much to show for it so far, but nevertheless.....
what appalling cynicism
called realities.
"Yes, we call it diplomacy".